School Project

Dear Readers,

When I was home for the holidays, some people I talked to expressed interest in helping me financially, if I were to do a large project during my second year of service. With that, I am officially asking for your help, if you would be so willing.

I live next door to the middle school principal and the geography teacher. They have been more than kind to me during my time in village, have given me meals, included me in local customs and holidays, and answered all of what they probably considered to be my dumb questions. The teachers in my village work hard and their school is in need of some work. The roof is there and qlso some of the floors have been laid. But it is incomplete. Year after year the village tries to add little finishes here and there as it can afford it. The walls are made of cheap palm branches which rot and must be replaced every year (the backside of the school doesn't even have walls), some classrooms flood with water during heavy rains, the teachers meeting "room" is a just a straw roof on stilts.

Beginning in April I plan on pledging some of my volunteer salary, depending on how much I am able to save, to buying cement, hiring masons, laying floors and building walls. I want to paint the drab cement walls (and depending, paint an educational mural or map on one side of the school).
I want to landscape around the school planting trees and teaching about the environment. Also depending, and if necessary, I may purchase new blackboards, desks, and other supplies for the teachers and students. There is literally no end to the things we could do with the money, which is why the professors and I are currently prioritizing everything into a list.

There is no target goal for the amount of money I want to raise for the school. The teachers and the village have not asked me for anything, they don't expect to get it all and are very grateful for the opportunity to improve their school. I want to do this for them because I believe education is the cornerstone of development, and the proper facilities can make a difference.

When I first told my neighbors about my desire to give them a "cadeau" (gift) my friend the professor said, "If you give us enough for one desk, we will build a desk. If you give us enough for desks and walls and floors, we will do that too. Everything will be good."

That is why I am excited and optimistic about doing this, they were very receptive to my ideas and are motivated to get things done. While many volunteers are skeptical to do large projects like this, I will be working with two teachers I trust completely, and I know that no money would go to waste.

My deadline for collecting money will APRIL 1, if you are interesting in giving a little (5, 10, 20 dollars, or whatever you want, you will find that a little can go a long way over here) contact my parents at the following email:

ronterrhodes@comcast.net

Or, if you already know them; just give them a call. They will be collecting the money and sending it to me in one lump sum after April 1. There are safe and efficient ways to send money here in Togo.

And I am sorry I can not offer the proper piece of paper for you in order to claim it as a charitable donation on your taxes.

I was planning on posting photos today of the school but the internet cafe is not cooperating, but when I go to the capital in April I will post before photos and then after photos so you can see what you have created.

Lastly, I understand that the American economy is not exactly doing great right now and that many people choose to support charitable causes closer to home (which is outstanding and commendable). I certainly don't expect much from you, the reader, except to read, enjoy and laugh at my blog; that's why I created this. So just this one time, I humbly request your assistance.

Regards,

Grant Rhodes

Stiltwalkers

I come back from the states and manage to catch a stiltwalking festival in my regional capital. Enjoy the photos.

Overall, my trip home to the states was great. Seeing friends and family from all over was fantastic. I dreaded answering the same questions over and over about my service, but seeing how interested you all were, it really wasn't that bad. I enjoyed all the questions and telling you about life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa. The one thing I forgot about the United States is that people generally don't like talking about diarrhea (which is contrary to Peace Corps Volunteers), so I had to stop my stories short a few times. Also it appears all most of you wanted to know is how I could have possibly eaten dog, which is something I still struggle to answer myself.

I hope everyone doesn't think Africa has "changed" me too much (unless it was for the better). At times I felt indifferent about things at home; what movie to see, what restaurant to eat at, what bar to drink at. But by then of my American sojourn I remembered one of those many truths Peace Corps makes you realize: We don't love the places we go and the things we do as much as we appreciate the people that are a part of those things. It was a sincere pleasure seeing everyone.

Things to look forward to in my second year of service:

Togolese Presidential elections in February. Emergency plans are in place in case of any kind of unrest occurs. Things should be suspenseful. I personally don't follow politics here and am not able to opine on anything. But I hope things go as smoothly as possible.

My parents visit in June.

I help complete the school in my village. More info on this to come in the next month.

I eat more weird stuff. This is pretty much inevitable.

Video Problems

Hey Everyone. I have been having trouble uploading some videos of my service on this blog, so instead I posted them over on facebook. If you have a facebook account, log on and find them under my profile. They are pretty entertaining.

Around the Village

Some neighbor kids. This looks out into the courtyard in front of my house. Chicken coop and small lumber pile on left, clothes line for laundry on the right. and a typical mud brick home straight ahead in the background. A typical picture of a compound in Togo.
A spider I found in my shower. The biggest I have ever seen, notice it compared to the other spiders to the left of the pencil. Enormous (leg span about the size of my hand)! This sits directly above my head while I bathe myself, which is a comforting thought.
My village market on a non-market day. Every Tuesday, this is filled with hundreds of people selling goods out of the little grass huts.
A child wanders through the empty market.
The village mosque. While predominantly Christian, there is a good size Muslim population in my village, mostly people who come from Northern Togo, where most of the Muslim people of Togo live.
Village dispensary/medical clinic. Where villagers go for minor medical problems. For serious medical problems, one must go to a city hospital which is a few hours drive from my village. Unfortunately, some people can't afford the city hospitals or the travel away from home.
My next door neighbors, Mathias and Marie-Claire. A school teacher and a seamstress. The coolest Togolese people I know and I eat most of my meals with them.
The dog, Suru. My neighbors bought her a few months ago. (This one isn't for eating, this is for petting)
Felix, the man in the middle, and his family. A man I work with in village and helps me out a lot. His daughter Marina, the one holding the radio, is one of my favorite kids in village. Very adorable.
The Catholic church. Probably the nicest building in village, it was built by Italian missionaries a number of years ago.
The inside of the church.
My neighbor Grace. She is terrified of me.
I'm getting a little closer, she's getting a little nervous.
I get to close and she freaks out and cries.
Some kids at a village funeral. Funerals here are not somber affairs, but rather weekend long celebrations with music and dancing.
An old man banging the drums at the funeral.
Some old women at the funeral who were ecstatic to have their pictures taken, despite their solemn expressions. The fact that they can see the little picture in the camera just moments after I take it blows their minds.

Home Home

If you haven't heard the news (I think it was a sidebar on the front page of The Times), I'm returning to The United States of America for Christmas, New Years, and general shenanigans. December 21st to Jan 13th, I'll be eating nothing but bagels and cream cheese, watching college football, and drinking American microbrews. And seeing all of you course. I'll also have lots of quality internet time to update more photos (including a portfolio of my village and a very disturbing meal) and wax philosphical. Stay tuned and keep your eye out for me, I'll be the guy wearing bright colors, gawking at the flush toilets.

Moringa and More Nature

A Presentation in a neighboring village on Moringa Trees. Moringa is called a miracle tree by volunteers. Its very healthy to eat the leaves, can be easily planted and cared for, and improve the soil. But most people don't know about them so we try to plant many and educate the community as much as possible.

A little rasta kid coming to see our Moringa presentation. Everyone with dread locks in Togo is called a Rasta.

Creating a tree nursery for Moringa

A pretty good turn-out at this presentation

My buddy James on his birthday with a bunch of kids in his village. Like me, James must deal with kids constantly coming into his yard looking through his screen door and windows. I was changing clothes one time in the front room of his house and as buttoned my pants I look over to see a little boy curiously looking through the bars of James window. "Uh James, I think your little neighbor just saw me naked." Lesson Learned.

Some women on their way to the market.

On a hike through the Akebou mountains

A dirty creek, one of many you find out in the bush. Most of the time their are stepping stones or a small plank of wood to cross, sometimes you just gotta get wet and hope the snail fever stays away.

The view by my village

Some Everyday Things

Wake up. Breakfast. Beans. This morning. Every morning. The only food I can still say I enjoy. Not that I dislike anything here. It’s just that after awhile, you become indifferent. Food is sustenance, flavor’s a luxury. The Peace Corps: The only two years of your life when you crave black eyed peas at 6am.

I walk down the street one hundred meters to “the bean lady.” 30 cents worth. If I’m starving, 40 cents. All along the way I greet people walking down the street, sweeping, sitting outside on their step. People bath behind cheaply made outdoor wooden showers. Motorcycles speed by, goats scatter. Bonjour! Ca va? Orou! Kla Kla les? Greetings are important here. When I run to people I have to answer a series of questions. How are you? And the house? And the health? And the maison? And your day? And your trip?

I finish breakfast. I return home. Noku Nyaro. Sometimes around mid-morning, a small army of children gather on my porch. If I have forgotten to lock my screen door, sometimes they come inside while I’m laying down. I hear them tip toeing around my front room looking for balloons, milk candy, or magazines. Their favorite activity? Flipping through old Economists and ripping out the little cardboard subscription cards inside. They love them. I can’t explain why. Most of the time I’m happy to have them. They are entertaining. I know some of their names. Maddie. Claire, Adilene. Mostly western names only pronounced with such thick accents you wouldn’t recognize them. (My two year old neighbor’s name is Joshua, pronounced zjay-zjoo-way) Sometimes they want to do laundry for me. I happily oblige to give them my dirty clothes in exchange for a couple cents and a red balloon. But sometimes I have to yell at them to go home. Moku Nyaro!

One recent morning, My friend James and I go on a long hike. We lose ourselves in the mountains. We run into local farmers and women on their way to the nearest market. We drink palm wine from an old oil can given to us by a local hunter. It’s awful. We stumble upon a few creeks, a few fuulani huts (nomadic herdsmen of West Africa), even a few cocoa trees, where we eat the sweet milky colored pulp inside. Everyone wants to know where we are going? Aloku Fin? We tell them no where in particular, just a morning pleasure hike. They look at us strangely. Americans are so bazaar. It starts to get really hot. We take our shirts off. 20 minutes later we are sunburned. Oh yeah, we live on the equator. Whoops.

Lunch. James and I each and some pates with okra sauce, which when prepared becomes the exact consistency of snot (so much so that Peace Corps volunteers around Africa know it simply as “snot sauce”). Pates is corn mush, the most similar in the states would probably be palenta. When I got to Togo I hated it, but lie I said, now I’m just indifferent. We both have about five bananas each. Located about 17 kilometers east of me deeper in the mountains, James’ village is the self-described banana capital of Togo, where forty cents will buy you about thirty bananas. (He once claimed to have eaten 52 bananas in three days).

The afternoon usually is repos, which is like a mexican siesta. Basically the whole country stops working from Noon to 2:30. I often spend this time trying to determine if my house is hotter than my front porch, than lie down on the concrete and sweat through my clothes for about an hour. I might also visit my village boutique which is probably is stocked better than one would think for a small African village. I can buy bungee cords, cookies, laundry detergent, talcum powder, boxed wine, machetes, coffee, batteries, flashlights, noodles, rice, candy, lighters, and even old dusty bottles of champagne which my friends and I regrettably bought on my birthday. Walking home from the boutique I can cut through the market place, which is open every Tuesday, or stick to the roads. The road is raised higher up than the homes, making me feel like a model on a runway, on display to the people of my village as I walk. People call out my name. Well not my name exactly but something like it. Laura, Sara, Ally (the three volunteers before me), Yovo (the Ewe word for white person), Anasara (the Kabye word for white person), Warerani (the Akebou word for white person), le blanche (the French word for white person), L’Americain, Mon frere, mon ami, monsieur, or else something that sounds like it starts with a g that could possibly be my name. Some kids are able to say Grant (remember to roll the r and put a u in between the a and n. Grrrraunt!). Most just say Grraaaaauuuuuuu, holding the u until they run of breath.

If my friend James happens to be in village, we, of course, always remember to play Frisbee out on my village soccer field. We always time it right when school lets out so hundreds of kids trudge home across the field and stop and gape out the mystifying orange disc which seems to hover above the Earth. James and I routinely whip thirty yard tosses to each other while Togolese kids pick it up and, in all throwing manners, like a shot put, like a baseball, like a javelin, chuck it three feet before it tumbles end over end to the ground. Some times in front of them, some times behind them. This would probably go on all night if we don’t eventually confiscate it and tell them they must go home. We yell them we will play the same game tomorrow. Yokou soso!

The evening arrives. I sit outside in my courtyard embracing the cool breeze. I eat with my neighbors, fufu, I’ve talked about this before, negatively. But my hatred again grew to indifference, but has recently grown again to enjoyment. I love it now. Nata fue! This is evidenced by a recent basketball sized- bowl my friends and I finished and swore had to be some kind of a record. It really is pretty good. Which I guess goes to show that the more you eat something, eventually you learn to accept it.

Sometimes after dinner l’infirmiere plays European soccer games on his t.v. out in front of his house. He has a satellite and a generator and charges ten cents entry to watch the match. There I sit huddled under a blue tarp squinting to make out the players on the tiny screen, hearing the steady hum of the generator, cheering for whichever team has an African on it. Although, Peace Corps Volunteers never forget their allegiance to their country, which got us in trouble once in our regional capital, Atakpame. The United States was playing Brazil, and as we walked into the bar chanting, U-S-A, U-S-A, all the Togolese men coincidentally became Brazil fans, cheering for Ronaldo, and shushing us with each goal against The States. After some brief cross-room smack talk, we realized we were on Togolese turf, and exited quietly when the U.S. blew a second half lead.

And I probably go to bed earlier than most eight year olds in the States, 8:00 to 8:30, maybe later if in the city. I lay in bed, anxious from my malaria medication, unable to fall asleep. Insomnia. Something I live with most nights here. But it’s better than malaria, most things are, so I continue to take my meds and deal with the side effects. After awhile, I fall asleep.